David Brat just beat Eric Cantor. Who is he?

Tea party challenger David Brat defeated the second-ranking Republican in the House, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). So, who is David Brat? Here he is, in his own words. (Jackie Kucinich/The Washington Post)

This post has been updated.

On Tuesday, David Brat ousted House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the Republican primary for Virginia's 7th Congressional District. And by a significant margin, too.

Given that Cantor's internal polling reportedly had him up 34 points last week, we cannot blame you if you aren't familiar with Brat's candidacy. So here's an overview of the man who may be the next member of Congress from Virginia's 7th District.

We'll start with the basics.

He is married with kids. Brat is a 49-year-old native of Alma, Mich., his wife's name is Laura, and his teenage children are Jonathan and Sophia. Oh, and he apparently goes by Dave.

He teaches economics at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va. Brat, who has a PhD and a Masters of Divinity, teaches mostly introductory economics classes at the college, a small liberal arts school outside Richmond. His faculty Web site (which hasn't been updated recently), features photos of Adam Smith, John Calvin, Friedrich Hayek, and John Maynard Keynes in the four corners. (If you're curious, his students give him moderately decent ratings as a professor.)

Brat was backed by the tea party. In addition to being backed by prominent conservatives (Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham), Brat was backed by grass-roots tea party groups as well. As the National Journal notes, Cantor's district became more conservative in the most recent redistricting, including adding new areas to his district, making an ideologically-driven challenge more possible.

In May, Cantor addressed the state Republican convention, where he received a negative response from some of the activists in the audience.

Brat is not a "liberal college professor." No doubt hoping that conservative voters would bail on Brat's candidacy, Cantor labeled him a "liberal college professor," which FactCheck determined was inaccurate. The site asked conservative economist Richard Rahn for his assessment of Brat and was told that "he always portrayed himself to me as very conservative."

As if to hammer home the point, Brat's previous research includes a study titled, "An Analysis of the Moral Foundations in Ayn Rand." (Brat says he is not a Randian.) He frequently trumpeted the six elements of the "Republican Creed" on the campaign trail, which you can read on his Web site.

He ran for the Virginia House of Delegates in 2011. In August 2011, Brat announced that he would run for the Republican nomination for a House of Delegates seat. The party chose to run someone else in the general election. (He won.)

Brat was massively outraised. According to his most recent filing with the FEC, Brat raised only about $206,000 through the middle of May. Cantor, on the other hand, raised $5.4 million this cycle.